Disappearing consoles?

[Mart van de Wege <wege34 zonnet nl>]

People,

Thanks to the wonderful world of magazine CD's I've got Helix
Gnome 1.2.1 installed on my system (Red Hat 6.2, XFfree 4.0, CD
from Linux Format (UK) september issue). It used the Helix
installer to install.
*However* after working for about 2 hours, I wanted to switch to a
virtual console (<ctrl+alt+F1>), and stared at a blank screen. All
my virtual consoles are gone! They were there before I installed, I
used one to compile kernel release 2.4.0-test5, then rebooted, they
were still around, install Helix, they are gone!
Does Helix turn them off or is it the combination of a new kernel
with XFree 4.0? I've had no other problems (yet) and I like to keep
my current setup, but I want my consoles back, since I like to do all
my compiling from one.

Help anyone?

Mart van de Wege